The Cut
The Cut
The cut was a mysterious and dangerous place in an otherwise safe neighborhood in Brooklyn. It ran from 27 Street to Bedford Avenue and then continued on the other side of the road all the way to Ocean Avenue. It was a dark overgrown path that paralleled the Long Island Railroad tracks. I am not sure what it’s exact purpose was but it may have provided access to the tracks for maintenance crews.
Although trains rarely used that neglected spur of the railroad, an occasional freight train rumbled by. The accompanying noise and vibrations were something we became used to in our apartment and on the block. As a youngster I would run to count the cars when I heard a train approaching. Any train with less than 100 cars was considered small and insignificant.
I was fascinated by the variety of the cars and learned their names. Boxcars, tankers, gondolas, flat cars; these were the things that fired a boy’s imagination. Engines held a special mystique. I can remember seeing a few steam locomotives as a young boy. With the transition to diesel, the puffs of thick black smoke disappeared. The red caboose always trailed behind the long trains. Grimy railroad man could always be seen inside the glowing room on wheels. What exactly did they do and say in that magical last car?
Despite parental warnings I was drawn to the cut. It was an endless source of adventure. There was a natural inclination to find ways through the fence and play on the slopes above the tracks Stories abounded about gangs who built caves into the embankments and used them as hideouts. I can recall with trepidation those first steps under the foreboding fence. We lived in fear of the railroad detectives who made a living catching and arresting boys, or so we imagined.
There were innumerable artifacts to be found along the right-of-way. Great status was attached to owning a rusty rail spike. Only the older more experienced boys had one in their possession. Even more valuable was a plate used to bind the rails to the ties. It’s strange how scraps of metal can be invested with such importance in the society of boys. Wild bushes growing along the fence provided an inexhaustible supply of switches. Long slender flexible branches were cut with folding penknives. The skin peeled off easily and they became whips that extended a boy’s power.
The cut was a nickname for shortcut. This passageway served a real purpose as a time and distance saver. It shortened the distance to and from school. Through its arched canopy I passed on the way to schools that made up an educational complex along Bedford Avenue. One could progress from elementary school all the way through college simply by going through the cut.
Real and imagined danger lurked in that dark corridor. If I used it at night I ran through it quickly in order to avoid any hidden demons. Once I even sliced deeply into my finger with a rusty razor, I found in the dirt. It is a permanent reminder of my youth. Walking on the railroad tracks and pressing your ear to the metal rail was not the wisest thing a boy could do, but how else could you tell when a train was coming.
As we entered our teen years we gave up playing imaginary games and riding our bicycles through the cut. Playing ball, schoolyards and girls replaced earlier boyhood amusements. The cut has been closed because it presented security problems for the houses that were adjacent to it. I remember it fondly as a place I faced my first dangers. It was a right of passage for a young boy. The cut was the training ground in which self-preservation was its most important lesson. I survived that basic training camp and moved on to broader horizons. Every little boy needs a hidden world fraught with some element of danger, to prepare him for the real world. The cut served that purpose for me